Every week, The Talon interviews a member of the Oklahoma Christian University community, a “Newsmaker,” to answer questions about their role on campus.
On September 16, we interviewed Liam Davis, a senior majoring in accounting and finance and this year’s homecoming student executive director.
Tell me about your position on the homecoming executive board.
“My position is student executive director. I am in charge of working with student life and the school on the student side. So I will represent the student body, and I will plan everything from the student’s perspective… I meet about weekly with the school, whether that’s with alumni relationships, admissions, or with student life to plan the week of homecoming, but also the student clubs’ requirements and how they should work weekly going into homecoming.”
What made you want to be on the homecoming executive board?
“I hung out in student life a bunch, and I thought it would be fun. And last year, I saw a missed opportunity for clubs to be involved in homecoming, because with our main event that I saw we did was our community event, and what the clubs do is they run booths and it’s not very interactive. It’s a walk, a come and go experience where alumni will walk, talk, and leave. There’s no mingling. There’s no fun. So we actually have been planning a huge revamp of that, where clubs are now involved, and it’s going to be a fall fest type of event.”
How did you pick your team?
“I was blessed to have a really easy selection process because we had so many amazing people sign up. I sent out a form for people to sign up for the positions they wanted, and after that, I would interview one by one for a week to get through them all. It was just a really nice process because one, I knew everyone, and two, everyone went into it with a heart ready to serve and ready to work. Probably the hardest part was choosing between the people, but I think we got a really good executive team… I’ll say the ones that we hired to pay, we have assistant executive director Madison Owens, club coordinator Sam Arter, treasurer Ben Kimbley, student event lead Titus Small and Trenton Hensley, community event lead Addie Neal and Megan Tubbs, devo and philanthropy Claudia Morrison, hoco hype night Nora Watson and Shepard Schuermann, social media director Sage Qerama, parade event lead Sophie Brown, and royalty lead Chloe Gates. And then there’s directors for every club, for freshmen as well.”
What do you think about the potential opportunities the homecoming builds have this year in going from floats to structures?
“We are very excited for these builds. The opportunity that we specifically saw in changing it away from floats is the idea of alumni being able to hang out with their clubs. They’re in a stationary spot, and they’re going to be during our community event with music, food, and just a festival. We want people to be there and hang out and talk and just see where their club is at, because when they just walk by on a float, you can’t experience the individual personalities of every club. You can’t see how much it’s grown or the community that it built by waving and walking by, and so that’s what we really wanted to show with these structures, and hopefully we can make it just something that’s really fun to see during homecoming week. You walk by Lawson Commons and you look over and you see structures and you know it’s homecoming week. It’s not just the same old, same old, it’s a big week for OC. So the history of the structures was that they were a secondary option to the floats. So you would do the float, and then depending on our community event, you would have a small structure. So two years ago we had a structure requirement, and that was a game, a carnival game or a board game… But when you can go and visit your club and just talk to them and hang out, it really is a different mindset for alumni coming in. We want homecoming to be inviting and social for alumni and families, and so if you are alumni or a family, and or even if you have a youth group or your church around the area, come to our events because we’re doing it for the community around us, and it’s not just for OC, but it’s for all of Edmond and everybody participating.”
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